From Our House to the White House
From Our House to the White House
This half-hour documentary tells the story of Sam Queen and the Soco Gap Dancers from the Maggie Valley area of North Carolina. They are widely credited with popularizing an exciting form of clogging into square dance, and they were regularly featured at Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, NC. Take special note at 21:14 for old B&W footage of the group dancing, a rare glimpse into the past.
Sam Queen, "the dancingest man in the land," was the group's leader; he had learned to call from Bob Love, an African-American dance caller.
Team dances were first performed at that event in 1927, but starting in 1928 and into the 1930s the Soco Gap Dancers took first prize with their energetic style that combined southern Appalachian big set figures with clog steps. Square dance moved from being just a recreation activity to becoming a performance piece. The Soco Gap Dancers went on to widespread acclaim, performing around the country and winning additional competitions.
Ruth Pershing writes, "Team clogging is a relatively new composite dance form that began in the 1920s in western North Carolina. It was initiated when The Smokey Mountain Dancers first performed at the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival in 1927 in Asheville. By 1938, team clogging had its own competition at the Lunsford Festival, and it was won by the well known Soco Gap Dancers from the Maggie Valley area. They performed freestyle buck dance steps continuously while doing mountain style square dance figures called by one of the dancers."
In 1939, the dancers were invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to perform at the White House for the visiting King and Queen of England. The queen is supposed to have remarked that the dancers' footwork was very much like clogging in her country, and the name stuck.
This documentary tells their story, with lots of archival photographs supplementing interviews with members of the team, now in their later years.
Interested viewers may also enjoy a 2016 interview with Sam Queen's daughter, and a tribute to Queen on the Blue Ridge Heritage website.
2021 Note: Online videos come and go, so just in case, the footage is also available at the USC Digital Library.
Subjects: Southern Appalachian - general
Tags: Asheville, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Maggie Valley, Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, Sam Queen, Soco Gap Dancers, team clogging
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Soco Gap Dancers |
| Item: Soco Gap Dancers at the White House | is related to | This Item |
| Item: Maggie Valley - Mountain Square Dance | is related to | This Item |
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From Our House to the White House
This half-hour documentary tells the story of Sam Queen and the Soco Gap Dancers from the Maggie Valley area of North Carolina. They are widely credited with popularizing an exciting form of clogging into square dance, and they were regularly featured at Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, NC. Take special note at 21:14 for old B&W footage of the group dancing, a rare glimpse into the past.
Sam Queen, "the dancingest man in the land," was the group's leader; he had learned to call from Bob Love, an African-American dance caller.
Team dances were first performed at that event in 1927, but starting in 1928 and into the 1930s the Soco Gap Dancers took first prize with their energetic style that combined southern Appalachian big set figures with clog steps. Square dance moved from being just a recreation activity to becoming a performance piece. The Soco Gap Dancers went on to widespread acclaim, performing around the country and winning additional competitions.
Ruth Pershing writes, "Team clogging is a relatively new composite dance form that began in the 1920s in western North Carolina. It was initiated when The Smokey Mountain Dancers first performed at the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival in 1927 in Asheville. By 1938, team clogging had its own competition at the Lunsford Festival, and it was won by the well known Soco Gap Dancers from the Maggie Valley area. They performed freestyle buck dance steps continuously while doing mountain style square dance figures called by one of the dancers."
In 1939, the dancers were invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to perform at the White House for the visiting King and Queen of England. The queen is supposed to have remarked that the dancers' footwork was very much like clogging in her country, and the name stuck.
This documentary tells their story, with lots of archival photographs supplementing interviews with members of the team, now in their later years.
Interested viewers may also enjoy a 2016 interview with Sam Queen's daughter, and a tribute to Queen on the Blue Ridge Heritage website.
2021 Note: Online videos come and go, so just in case, the footage is also available at the USC Digital Library.